'Up All Night' Loses Christina Applegate

Series star exits NBC comedy as it undergoes switch to multicamera format

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/8/2013 4:16:34 PM

Christina Applegate is exiting NBC's Up All Night in the latest setback to the struggling sophomore comedy.

"It's been a great experience working on Up All Night, but the show has taken a different creative direction and I decided it was best for me to move on to other endeavors," Applegate said in a statement. "Working with Lorne Michaels has been a dream come true and I am grateful he brought me into his TV family. I will miss the cast, producers and crew, and wish them the best always."

An NBC spokesman had no comment on the future of the show without Applegate.

Her departure comes as Up All Night is on hiatus to retool its format from single-camera to multicamera, including building new sets to accommodate a live studio audience. Production on five new episodes was scheduled to resume in February, with the comedy to return to NBC's schedule in late spring.

Series creator Emily Spivey also left the series in January, after Linda Wallem (Nurse Jackie) replaced Tucker Crawley as showrunner.

At the TCA press tour in January, NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke said she hoped the format change would play to the strengths of series stars Applegate, Will Arnett and Maya Rudolph.

"We started looking at the show and thinking what was the best format for it, given that they felt a little tied down by the format they were in and the creative direction of the show," she said. "And they were kind of itching to be able to be really perform in a way that we all felt, in front of a live audience, would be the best solution to that."

Up All Night had been averaging a 1.3 rating with adults 18-49 on Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. after averaging a 1.7 leading out of The Office in its first season.

Deadline first reported the story.